1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to media purchase and distribution and, more particularly, to selectively proscribing the purchase or viewing of selected media items and/or the distribution of certain proscribed podcasts in a client-server environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditionally, music has been purchased at music stores or music departments of larger stores. A consumer will visit the music store or department and manually browse for albums or compact discs (CDs) of interest. Often, the music in the music store or department is categorized by genre, and then indexed by artist. For example, genre can include rock, country, pop, soul, jazz, etc. After the consumer selects an album or CD of interest, the consumer proceeds to a check-out register to pay for the album or CD being purchased.
In recent years music delivery or distribution over the Internet has become popular. Due to the advances in efficient file formats, such as MP3 and MPEG4, the size of media files have become small enough to make their download via the Internet practical. Also, technological advances have led to higher-speed Internet connections and lower cost of memory. The combination of these advances make downloading media files, such as for music and videos, manageable and not too time consuming.
One popular approach to music distribution was mp3.com which uses a centralized server for storage of the numerous songs that are available for download. Another popular approach to music distribution was Napster in which peer-to-peer sharing was utilized. With peer-to-peer sharing, the numerous songs reside on the user machines of the many users, not on a centralized server.
In addition to music distribution, the publishing of audio broadcasts over the Internet (commonly referred to as Podcasting) has become a significant. Podcasting is a method of publishing audio broadcasts via the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed of new files (usually MP3s) that became popular in late 2004, largely due to automatic downloading of audio onto portable media players or personal computers.
Podcasting is very distinct from other types of online media delivery because of its subscription model, which uses a feed such as Rich Site Summary (RSS). RSS is a family of XML file formats for web syndication used by (amongst other things) news websites and weblogs to deliver an enclosed file. To use RSS, some type of aggregation service (akin to a personal mailbox) must be established in addition to subscribe to the sites that one want to get updates on. However, unlike conventional subscriptions to pulp-based newspapers and magazines, RSS subscriptions are generally free and typically only give you a line or two of each article or post along with a link to the full article or post.
By establishing a personal aggregator and a corresponding subscription, a user can select which type and kind of podcasts are to be received. In addition to greatly enhancing an individual's choice of information, Podcasting enables independent producers to create self-published, syndicated “radio shows,” and gives broadcast radio programs a new distribution method. Listeners may subscribe to feeds using “podcatching” software (a type of aggregator), which periodically checks for and downloads new content automatically. Some podcatching software is also able to synchronise (copy) podcasts to portable music players. Any digital audio player or computer with audio-playing software can play podcasts. The same technique can deliver video files as well as audio.
Unfortunately, however, some content available as either a Podcast or for online purchase may not be deemed suitable for certain groups of people, such as children. In these situations, a parent (or other such content guardian) may want to restrict the availability of certain material based upon sexual content, violence, profanity, unwanted political views, etc.
As a result, there is a need to permit restrict the availability of certain content otherwise freely available.